BRITAIN: How can the governing classes be so naive about the threats we face?

Britain once pursued its national interest with such cynical single-mindedness that European diplomats came to call us “perfidious Albion”. Yet these days, on the international stage, we are hopelessly naive. This weekend we learned that Huawei – the Chinese telecommunications company that will help to build our 5G network – secretly funded a Cambridge University study into the global governance of communications and technology. Cambridge denied that Huawei had the right to veto its findings, but the Chinese had no need to do so: predictably, the authors praised their paymasters.

“Elite capture”, as intelligence agencies call it, is part of China’s strategy to undermine its rivals, kill questions about its actions, and use the openness of liberal democracies against them. And universities are an important part of the game. Chinese students now provide one fifth of university tuition fee income, and take one in 10 places at Russell Group universities. Dependence on Chinese revenues is such that vice chancellors worry that the coronavirus could bring about a funding crisis.

It is doubtful this is all they worry about, given their reliance on Chinese cash. Universities are supposed to be seats of free thinking and independent research. But the Chinese state is open about its willingness to use its financial muscle to shut down criticism and dissent.

There’s nothing elite about “elites” who sell out their own countrymen.